Bounty Hunter
by SilverShark Fang
Summary: Rewritten from Knights. I expected to die after getting his by a speeding truck, not to somehow got reborn into the world of Fairy Tail. Oh God, Is that- Is that Erza Scarlet? Why in the actual fuck is she my little sister? Better yet, why am I here? SI OC rating may change to M.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I decided to rewrite this story from scratch. Hope it came out better than before. Please leave me some reviews and don't hesitate to click that Like and Follow button!**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Death and Rebirth.**

Molten gold eyes opened slowly, taking its time to focus itself before drinking in the sight of the massive skyscrapers filling the city, stretching tall into the night sky as though attempting to grab the moon and snatch away the stars. Looking back down, _He_ came to the sight of the many faceless civilians, clad in all sorts of different styles of clothing, walking to who knows where doing who knows what.

Uninterestedly, _His_ neck craned upwards, coming to the sight of a traffic lights, slowly blinking itself from the red to the green. _His_ legs slowly, robotically even, moved to step towards the empty road, slowly crossing it.

Golden eyes cringed as a bright light appeared in its line of sight and _He_ released a sigh. Mechanically, as though dreading the sight that would greet him, _He_ turned his head to the side to look for the source of the offending bright light.

A truck.

More specifically, a rusty yellow truck.

The thing honked at him, the loud noise blared loudly around the empty road but nevertheless, not a single man or woman turned to face it. The truck continued its track, not an ounce of its speed lost. In fact, it was quite possible that the thing was accelerating eagerly towards _Him._

Once again, golden eyes watched with a sort of tired resignation before closing itself. With a cringe and the sound of tires screeching against the asphalt road, Axel let himself be hit by the speeding truck and greeted the engulfing darkness with an open arm.

* * *

In the beginning, I couldn't understand what was happening at all.

Everything was a mix of a plethora of colours, motion and sound, following no rhyme nor reason. It was as though an artist had decided to pour their entire supply of acrylic pain on their canvas while dancing a mix of tango and ballet dance with a broken jazz in the background. Simply looking at everything made my head spun. Luckily, my consciousness continued to slip from my grip every few minutes, so I was at least sparred from the mind-rape that was my eyesight.

I don't know how much time has passed since then, but one day I simply woke up.

And nothing made sense anymore.

I was pretty sure that I was dead. The feeling of the truck slamming into my body, the sound of breaking spines and shattering skull, the seething agony of rupturing organs, the warmth of my blood as it flowed out of my body and the horrible feeling of death, it was all too real to simply dismiss as a realistically horrific nightmare.

But here I am, alive and well, laying peacefully in what looked like a giant baby's crib. If that wasn't enough reason to go on a fit of panic attack, the fact that I was now in the body of a baby certainly would. Naturally, I freaked out, rolling around in my crib as I cried like a madman as loudly as my baby lungs could allow.

The door suddeny banged open, momentarily stopping my cries of panic before a woman strode casually into my room, face set on what looked like grim acceptance. She was a pretty example of womanly charm; curvaceous, slim, skin as smooth and peerless as high quality pearls and a beautiful face to complete the set. Her crimson red hair, done into a long, stylish ponytail, swayed with each step she took as she made her way towards my crib.

"What now?" She grumbled tiredly, barely loud enough for me to hear. Well, woman, you're quickly shaping yourself to be a real motherly figure, keep it up and I'm sure you'll catch up with the likes of Maleficent and Queen Jadis in no time.

The woman gingerly placed her hands on my diapers covered bottom, feeling me up for any wetness that would indicate me wetting myself. I don't know if I should feel embarrassed that a beautiful grown woman was touching me in that place or horrified that said woman was actually doing this to her own baby son.

"You're not pissing yourself." Well, thank you captain obvious, I can see that. The woman then proceeded to pick me up and rock me gently to sleep and while I hated to admit it, she did quite a good job in her rocking. "Sleep."

Fuck this. I'm going to learn walking as fast as I can and then I'm going to potty train myself just as fast. With that thought in mind, I slowy went back to sleep.

* * *

Four years went by in the blink of an eye and through those years I managed to gain a lot of crucial information about many things. For starters, I was apparently reborn into the fictional world of Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail, precisely in the same village as one of its main heroine, Erza Scarlet; Rosemary Village. It was both a curse and a blessing, really. On one hand, this situation presented many ways for me to inject myself to the story. On the other hand, was slavery. Well, it was a future food for thought, I guess.

The time was something else, though. I don't know how far behind I am from the plot, considering that the village was still standing and not a pile of charred woods and bloody corpses on the ground. As far as my knowledge, there was also no Erza yet so I was pretty confident that the plot has yet to truly start.

Next, I was apparently named Axel with no surname whatsoever. My mother, Trisha, please note that the term was wholly biological in nature and consist of no personal attachment whatsoever, was apparently a prostitute, hence the reason why there is no surname in my name. That being said, I was probably a child made by accident.

Damn, that sucks.

If there's anything I could be thankful of, it was the genes. I kept my old golden eyes, several shade brighter than Trisha's own golden brown, with short, spiky black hair with some white tuft in the front that according to her, looked exactly like my father's. My skin tone was that of a light tan, showing that I was neither too adventurous nor too lazy to stay home all day. I wasn't being boastful when I say that I looked like one hell of a lady killer.

On a lighter note, this world is certainly funny. They spoke in japanese but writes in english, despite the total difference in both language. It made things slightly easier for me, so I ain't complaining about it.

That was about everything, I guess.

Oh right, almost forgot; Trisha's pregnant again.

Somehow, I really got a bad feeling about this.

As I walked through Rosemary village, I couldn't help but feel like the gears of fate was about to start its rotation. I could almost hear the clanking of steel as the gears spun the tales of FAIRY TAIL into reality-

 _CLACK!_

-bringing about tragedies, hardships and lots of epic battles and cheesy motivational speech along the way. And I was stuck in a crossroad, whether to literally step off the ledge and into the abyss to try and change the story or to play it safe and stick to bright, cheery if useless civilian side. If every person had a gear of fate specifically designated for them, then I am sure mine was being indecisive about which way to turn.

 _CLACK! CLACK!_

I whirled around, intend on giving the noisy person a piece of my mind when I came upon the sight that made me freeze in my spot and literally petrify to stone.

He was a tall man, easily reaching 6 foot in height, with a perfectly tanned skin, lean athletic build, sharp orange eyes and short, spiky black hair with white tuft in the front and a scar running across his face. He was dressed in a zipped-up sleeveless black vest, a pair of black jeans held on by a silver belt and a pair of armored shoes. On his right arm, was a black and orange gauntlet and on his back, was a large sheathed sword.

The stranger grinned at me. "So it seems she wasn't lying to me when she said that you're a carbon copy of me, dipshit." He said, grinning widely in a way that reminded me of a cheshire cat. "So, you're Axel, yeah? I'm your old man. The name's Lepanto, remember it well cuz' you're coming with me." Without even waiting for a reply, my self-declared dad proceeded to pick me up by the back of my neck and hauled me like a sack of potato.

"Wait, what?" I glared at the older man, so similar yet so different from myself. "Who the hell are you calling dipshit, you shitty old man?! And what do you mean by coming with you!? I'm not going anywhere! Put me down!" I screamed, hoping to gain the attention of the crowd and ask them for help. Strangely though, they looked as if they never realized that we exist here in the first place.

"Illusion magic. Convenient, right?" My alleged old man grinned at me, displaying rows of sharpened canine. "Now, listen to me. Your 'mom'-" He gave an air quote on that word. "-has decided to throw you to the dogs, i.e me, and let me do as I please with you. So, since you're now my responsibility, I am taking you with me on my bounty hunting/mercenary jobs." He said.

"That bitch." I growled under my breath.

"Her profession, exactly."

"Wait, so you're a bounty hunter?" I asked, intrigued. Hiro Mashima never mentioned anything about bounty hunters in Fairy Tail. Legal guilds, Independent guilds, Dark guilds, Balam Alliance, Treasure hunters, Ten Wizard Saints... nope. No bounty hunter ever mentioned.

"Uhuh. First time seeing one?" The older man asked.

"Sort of." I nodded.

"Not surprising. Nowadays, mages prefer to go join those pussy legal guilds for safe jobs and steady incomes. Or, in case of the more daring ones, join a dark guild to go on violent shenanigans and terrorizing the civilians. The Balam Alliance, I could tolerate, they are strong guys with large prices on their heads, the small fries though.. Tsk, little boys playing such big toys. I bet they secretly like to play house and dolls." He complained, annoyed by the, in his words, new generation of pussy mages.

"Err.. not that I didn't enjoy you criticizing every mage currently in existence, but could you please put me down, now?" I sweatdropped from my spot under his arms, feeling my pride taking blows after blows every second this little parade goes on.

"No. I'm not gonna risk you running away from me. Besides, I walk faster than a dipshit like you." My.. well, I guess I'll have to start calling him my old man, said, looking at me as though I was a little rabbit that was about to escape from his grip the moment he turned his eyes away from me.

"I'm not a dipshit, you shitty old man!" Yup, that will be his term of endearment. "And I can freakin' walk fast with my own two feet!"

"Still no." He smirked. He was totally enjoying this, I knew it!

"Shitty old man." I grumbled, but ultimately let the matter go.

"By the way, I'm also going to train you into a pro bounty hunter, so don't you ever think of being lazy around me, dipshit." He said, orange eyes gleaming with sadistic anticipation at the prospect of training me to the ground until I sweat and cries blood. The image gave me a deep shiver. "Hehe.. Look forward to it, Musuko-chan~." He sang childishly.

The rest of the trip was spent in silence, us just trying to get used to the other's presence. By the time that we got out of the village and was in a safe distance away, the sun was already half down into the horizon and the sky was painted a blazing vermillion.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"I'm gonna show you something cool." He flashed another fanged grin at me before slamming both of his clenched fist together and summoned the trademark magic circles commonly seen in the anime. The orange magic circle glowed a bright white light before disappearing, replacing it in its place was a giant black manta ray.

It was a large thing, with a pair of glowing blue eyes and gaping mouth, though with its wings tucked beneath its body, it was impossible to know its exact size. It was predominantly black in coloration, though its back was decorated with multiple white spots that glowed faintly in the dim evening light. It's tail, long as it is, whipped about behind it, knocking down several trees as a result.

"Woah.." I breathed out, completely awed.

"Heh. Speechless now are ya, dipshit?" Came the smug voice of my old man, ruining the moment. "This is my **Kassō Manta(Gliding Manta Ray)**. It was used for quick, aerial escape and transportation. Neat, right?" He grinned, patting the giant manta on the head, earning himself something between a purr and gurgle from the creature.

"Yeah." I breathed out. "Is this some sort of summoning magic?"

To my surprise, Lepanto broke out into a violent fit of amused laughter. I blinked at the older man for a second before scowling at him. "What the hell's so funny?" I asked, growling at the laughing man.

"No-nothing!" He said, trying to stop his laugh with abysmal results. "Haha.. No, I don't use summoning magics." He said, humor finally under control.

"Then what? It's not molding magic, that much is certain."

"Well, dipshit." I growled at him and he grinned at me, liking me reaction to his teasing. "This is my primary magic, the lost magic, Arc of Embodiment." He informed proudly and at that moment, I just realized that my dad was the user of one of the most hax magic in the entirety of Fiore -just like that stupid pompadour bastard from Grimoire Hearts.

"And you're going to learn it."

FML.

* * *

 **A/N: What do you think? Is it better? I hope it is. Give me your opinion in review guys! See ya on the next chapter!**

 _Next chapter preview :_

 _"This meditating shit is making my ass sting!"_

 _"Then let's take on a more hands-on approach, shall we?"_

 _"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! YYYOOOUUU SSSSHHHHIIIITTTTTTYYYY OOOLLLDDD MMAAANNNN!"_

 _"How the fuck did you bring your imagination to reality?"_

 _"Ugh! Is this what they call a biological weapon?"_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hiya! I'm back with another chapter on BH! You guys are totally awesome! I wasn't expecting this much favourites and followers and.. OMG, It pierced the ten reviews standard I set on myself! Thanks a bunch!**

 **So, well, to clear things up, Erza and Axel is still sibling. They're half sibling with their mother being a prostitute and different fathers. Axel will still save Erza and yes, we still get to see the cuteness that was Kid!Erza. Hopefully, I can pull it off. On a side note, I'm glad that my new background for my OC is better than the previous one. Haha.**

 **Anyhow, thank you for the reviews everyone. I'm going to make sure that this remake is better than its predecessor so don't look away just yet. Please leave some comment on what you think about it and don't forget to click that fav and follow button. Enjoy the chappie!**

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Quality Time of a Family of Bounty Hunters.**

Flying on the back of a giant manta was a novel experience for me, and my currently child-like mindset couldn't help but laugh and squeal with joy at the exhilarating experience, completely ignoring the more mature side of my mind as though it never existed in the first place. Lepanto had probably noticed it, if the mirthful grin was anything to go by.

Normaly, I'd never let anyone see this childish side of me that I've clamped and buried into the deepest recesses of my mind, but right now, I couldn't really care about anything else. There was just me, the awesome manta, the shitty old man, the beautiful night sky, the wind and the comfortable silence around us.

And fuck, It was perfect.

Unconsciously, my eyes started to droop, tired from all the excited cheers that I'd let out since the beginning of our trip. Teetering at the edge of consciousness, I barely noticed a pair of strong limbs pulling me back into a warm, comfortable embrace. A bit hard, sure, but warm and comfy nonetheless. Without much fanfare, I quickly lost myself to sleep.

"Good night, Axel."

"Mhm. G'night, old man."

* * *

"What a weird dream." I muttered to myself as I woke up from the best sleep I've ever had in my entire four years of life in Earthland. I rubbed my eyes, purging away the last remnants of sleep before stretching my body as far as I could, feeling the pleasurable pop of my bones all throughout my body, eliciting a sigh of relief from me. "Do you know that you've a very comfy body, Yozora?" I asked, patting the **Kassō manta** on top of his head, earning me that strange mix of a purr and a growl from the fish.

"What dream?" My old man pitched in, raising an eyebrow at me in a silent inquiry before giving me a confused stare. "And who the hell is Yozora?"

"Well, I have this weird dream where you pulled me into a hug and let me use your body as a hug-pillow." I answered, shrugging my shoulders at the very notion of it ever happening. "Really doesn't suit your character, by the way. Anyhow, Yozora is the name of your Manta and no, I don't care what you think, I'm still naming it." I said, patting the creature softly on the head, this time earning a pleasant cross between a thrill and a whistle from it.

Seriously, this awesome manta has got some pretty weird voice box to produce all this unique noises. All that awesomeness deserve a name to be known with.

Old man gave an annoyed grumble for my comment before pulling out several photographs from his pocket, a cheshire grin suddenly stretching on his face as he waved the thing in my face. "You know, you look so incredibly cute last night that I think it would be horribly selfish of me to keep all this mushiness to myself." My eyes bulged out of their socket, immediately zeroing in on the waving photographs to see that indeed, it was as he claimed it to be.

It was a photograph of me sleeping against him.

 _ME_ against _HIM._

And he even has the nerve to give a peace sign on each of the photographs. Heck, there's even one where he was pulling my cheeks making me do weird faces in my sleep!

My face immediately flushed with a combination of embarrassment and righteous fury "WWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed, steam rising up from on top of my head in the vague shape of a shroom-cloud before I lunged at him, intent on getting those blackmail materials and ripping them to pieces with my own hands when the photographs suddenly vanished into motes of orange light, disappearing into the morning air. With my target gone, I was left to collide with my old man's hard-as-a-brick-wall body.

And damn, did it hurt.

"Ouch! The heck is wrong with your body!?" I growled, rubbing the slight soreness in my face from colliding right onto him. "And where the hell are those fabricated piece of blackmail!? Give 'em now!" I screamed at him, irritated beyond believe. My reputation is at stake and I will be damned before I let my reputation plummets before it even started.

The Bounty Hunter laughed at me, orange eyes seemingly glowing with mirth. "I was just messing with you, dipshit, calm down." He said, hands set in the standard placating motion that people used to calm others down. "I made them with my magic, so there's no real photograph with me. Heck, I don't even have any camera to snap the picture." He admitted.

I heaved a sigh of relieve, my body slumping back as the adrenaline that flooded my system slowly went down. "Shitty old man." I grumbled with no real bite in my tone, more tired than anything.

"Whatever, dipshit." He dismissed me off with a flippant, very casual wave of his hand. That bastard.. "Anyhow, we're getting close to our next stop, so get ready." Saying something like that, there's really nothing to really prepare seeing as there's really nothing that we could do on top of Yozora, I should know, since I've lost my deck of playing cards to the wind when I tried to rope the Old Man into a game of poker. A shame, it was a pretty good quality too..

Without much to do, I find myself sitting just at the edge of Yozora's side, admiring the view of the forest below me, the small waterfall located a bit furthere west from our destination and the town looming in the distance. "What're we gonna do there?" I asked.

"Hmm?" Old Man turned to me, eyes slightly dimming in boredom and disinterest. "Oh, We're gonna resupply, rest for a while, meet my contact for some new bounties to catch and, well, if there's really nothing to do, I'm going to make do with my promise and train you up." He said.

"Somehow, I felt as if I should go prepare a casket for my funeral." I muttered under my breath, a sweatdrop trailing down my head.

* * *

It was a bit later in the morning when we finally reached our destination, a quaint peaceful town of Clavel*, where we stopped to rest for a couple of weeks until the Old Man could find a new bounty or a potential client to hire his services. The town was located at least fifteen miles, north-east to the capital city of Crocus. It was a decent town, with buildings roughly the same design as those in Balsam with the only difference being the town's lack of a river and overabundance of forest.

Instead of traditional japanese though, the town took more to a traditional chinese feel to them. It was a bit jarring, entering a place with an extremely different style and trend, I mean. I almost felt like getting hit with a rather hard case of culture shock with how different everything here is with Rosemary.

However, that was neither here nor there. Right now, there are more important things to pay attention to than the different culture of Clavis, such as my Old Man who was trying and, loathe as I am to admit it, successing in channeling a strict teacher persona as he started our first session of training.

"Right." Old Man began, orange eyes uncharacteristically serious. I gulped, unconsciously straightening my back in anticipation. This is it, the moment I'll begin to learn everything there is to know about fighting; unarmed, armed or magical. I took a deep breath, suppressing the bubbling excitement in me with minimal success before focusing intently on my Old Man. "Today, I'll teach all there is about being a bounty hunter; tricks, techniques, abilities, knowledge and other useful stuff."

"Okay." I responded, slightly dismayed with the amount of excitement still leaking into my voice.

Old Man smirked, orange eyes gleaming like a predator. Must've heard the excitement, I sulked. Anyhow, he chose to spare me the embarrassment in order to move on with his lesson, something I was secretly thankfull about. "First, I'll train you physically. We'll increase your stamina, strength, speed, pain-tolerance, and battle instinct. Then, we'll move on with magic training; activating your magic, meditation, manipulation and control of the flow of your magic, increasing your reserve before training in a specific kind of ability, in this case, Arc of Embodiment. Finally, I'll teach you techniques. Dodging, hand-to-hand, armed combat, tracking, silent movement, infiltrating, and lots of other stuff." He listed.

I gulped. That was a lot of stuff to learn.

"Well, excited?" He asked, not a trace of humor in his voice even though the predatory smile never left his voice.

"Sort of." I replied, not really sure with myself in the face of the, admittedly, terrifying predatory smirk etched onto his face. "Why? Was I not supposed to?" I asked, a bit afraid to hear the response.

"By the time I'm done with you-" He cracked his knuckles, his grin seemingly widening despite the impossibility of it. "You're going to know the meaning of pain at a very intimate level."

"Fuck my life." I groaned.

"Oh, and here." He produced five contraptions that looked like a pair of leg warmer, a pair wristband and a waistband made out of wood. I reached to grab them out of curiosity when the old man dropped them to the ground, cracking the soil as though it was a mere brittle piece of glass. My eyes bulged out of its socket at the sight of the damage they cause. "Starting today, you are to wear those at all times, except for sleeping, eating and bathing."

"Double fuck my life."

Old Man grinned, once more showcasing the sharpened canines he possessed as he picked up the weights as though it weighed nothing. "Well, come here and let me put this on you." I moved forward mechanically, eyeing the weights as though they were the vilest thing ever existed in this world. They probably are, now that I think about it. "Hold still." Quick as lightning, the seasoned Bounty Hunter strapped those torture tools onto me; torso, both of my arms and legs.

I felt like the world just trippled its gravitational force on me.

"Uugh." I grunted, trying in vain to keep myself from hunching from the weight placed onto my body. "So.. _Uurgh.._ What now?" I asked, eager on doing something to take my mind off the extra weights settled onto me.

"Eager much?" Grrr, that bastard. "Well, let's start with a simple workout to warm you up. 100 push-ups." He ordered.

"Come again?" I paused, gaping at the old man with what I was sure to be a horrified expression. Really? Did he just say that a hundred push up with these medieval torture device is a simple warm up? There must be a lot of screw loose in his head.

"100 push-ups. Now."

With some bitching about sadistic slave drivers, I dropped down to the ground on all fours and started to do my warm up. It was so warm, in fact, that I couldn't even feel my arms after the first twenty pushes and I was pretty sure that both of them has turned into jello by the time I reached fifty. My arms ached and burned, feeling as though someone was shoving burning needles down my skin and into each nand every strand of pain receptors in my arm.

But I kept on pushing.

I simply can't stop.

For if I did, I was sure the burning coals right below and around my body would scorch my skin black.

"See? An added incentive is always good to push you to your limit." Old Man chirped from his spot on the ground, doing his fair share of workout, wearing the same weights on his body, only probably a lot heavier than mine. No wonder his body was as hard as a brick wall if this is the kind of training he did in his childhood.

"Fuck you." I growled to him, grunting as the tip of the burning coals grazed my thigh. That's gonna leave a mark.

"I wanna see you try." He replied amusedly before quickly continuing his workout, now using only one hand to push himself up. He shot me a challenging grin, silently daring me to try and copy his stunt. With a competitive streak a mile wide like mine, there's no way I'm gonna let that challenge unanswered. With a gritted teeth, I suppressed all the pain in my arms and quickly resumed my workout.

* * *

 **A while later...**

"Hahahaha! Well, it sure is nice to see that my son has a fighting spirit in him!" My Old Man laughed, not even breaking a sweat from what I counted was at least, 150 push ups, 100 one armed puch ups and another 100 hand stand push-ups. Just how much of a stamina freak is he!? "And the competitive streak of a lion to boot!"

"Shut.. _huff.._ it!" I growled at him, though I think the fact that an exhausted four year old was growling at him was more amusing for Old Man than it is scary. I think he views me as most common lion cubs or wolf pups, more fluff than fang. "There, I've done it! Exactly 100 push ups! Now what?"

I tried to stand up, but my hands was determined to rebel and betray me by being as weak and unsteady as a jello and without the strength behind it, I immediately fell back down onto the ground, flopping uselessly like a fish out of a water. "Damn it! You traitor, push me up!" I glared at both of my arm, imagining them with a mouth and shooting me the raspberries.

Old Man once again snickered at me, completely enjoying the sight of me glowering at my own traitorous hand. "Well, at first I planned on pushing through with your physical lesson until later in the evening, but I guess I could spare you the tor- I mean, training and move on with the magical side of things. Think of it as a gift for doing so well on your first try." He said.

I knew he was about to say torture just now. That bastard.

"Alright."

Just like the first time we met, Old Man proceeded to unceremoniously deposit me over his shoulder like a sack of potato as he carried me to who-knows-where. However, Unlike the first time we met, I was too tired to do anything to show my displeasure of the way he manhandled me and so, settled myself with growling and hissing at him.

"We're here." He said, finally letting me down, still in the way most commonly used to a sack of potatoes; instant drop.

"Gah!" I shouted, clutching me throbbing head which had just impacted with the hard ground. I glared at him with annoyed molten gold eyes, tears pricking from the corner of my eyes from the pain. "What the hell did you do that for?!"

"I slipped." I performed the fabled face-plant at his answer. Really? You slipped? I have heard a person more than half your age make better excuses than you! "Anyway, strip." He ordered.

"Eh?" I was broke off my internal screaming by the abrupt order. "What for?"

He jabbed his thumb towards his back where a large waterfall was located, water streaming down into the river like a broken faucet, strong and hard. "We're going to meditate." He answered before quickly stripping off his clothes as well. "C'mon, dipshit. What are you waiting for? An invitation?"

"Fine. No need to get snarky, geez." I rolled my eyes at him. Seems to me that he wants to soak up on the cold water more than the meditation itself. I quickly stripped off my clothes, leaving myself in nothing but my boxers before following the Old Man to one of the many stones jutting our from below the waterfall.

"Must we do the cliche waterfall meditation thing?" I asked.

"Either this or meditating on a piece of bamboo with only one leg." He asnwered.

"Let's do this."

"That's what I thought." He nodded smugly at me.

* * *

Several hours into the meditation exercise and I'm already growing sick of it.

No, seriously, the boredom itself is already enough to kill me, add the stream of cold water continuously pouring itself on top of my head and the hunger that was clawing at my stomach, and you've got a top-class torture.

I chanced a peek to my side, curious as to how my Old Man was doing when I was greeted with the sight of him enveloped in a thick orange wisp of power. The water around him parted, pouring around him instead of on top of him. He was as still as a rock, eyes closed, breath regulated and calm as anyone could ever be.

He looked like a sage, as impossible as it is.

A very fit, lean-muscled and not-so-religious looking sage.

"Close your eyes and focus yourself, dipshit." He suddenly spoke, eyes still closed shut and tight. "I know you're watching me. Get back to meditating." He ordered sternly.

"Easy for you to say." I responded. "All this meditating shit is making my ass sting! This rock isn't exactly the most comfortable spot in the world, y'know?" I grouched, gingerly rubbing my ass to soothe the pain and discomfort from hours of sitting on top of a rock. Oh, how I wished for a couch to sit on.

"Fine." Old Man sighed exasperatedly at me, opening his eyes and letting it twinkle with those mischievous gleam that made me think that I've just dug my own grave. He smiled a smile so sweet it was sickening and I quickly found myself regretting opening my stupid mouth. "Let's take on a more hands on approach, shall we?" He hopped off his rock and resummoned his signature **Kasso Manta** into existence in a flash of orange light.

"Ride up." He ordered.

I moved myself from my seat on top of the rock, shivering at the sudden lost of cold comfort and the chilling wind blowing through the forest. I wondered what he was planning, considering that this was the same man who thought that a hundred push up with a hundred kilogram weight weighing you down was a simple warm up.

Probably something equally outrageous.

"Up." And suddenly, in no time at all, we're both on top of the waterfall itself. Wait, I've got a bad feeling about this. The place and situation rung so many alarm in my heads it wasn't even funny.

"Old Man.. you're not going to do something crazy right?" I asked, trepidation colouring my voice at the sight of the fanged grin he wore whenever a particularly devilish idea was concocted inside his equally evil mind.

"One word." He said. He moved closer to me and laid a hand on my shoulders, face set into a grim expression that got me gulping. "Geronimo."

"Huh?" And then, the bastard pushed me off. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! YYYYOOOUUU SSSSHHHHIIITTTYYYY OOOLLLLLDDD MMAAANN!" I screamed.

"Have a safe trip down!" The bastard produced a white handkerchief from thin air and waved it at me.

I flipped several times in mid-air, unable to even position myself correctly to protect my more vulnerable body parts. For a moment, everything seemed to slow down, and I could see everything in perfect clarity. Huh, Is this what it meant when they say that we were given a chance to reflect on our past wrongs and sins before our death? If it is, then I guess it was entirely correct and true.

I swear, I just saw my whole life flash in front of my eyes.

...

...

Like hell I'm gonna die here! All those one hundred push ups and then I'm dying? Ha! Fuck that!

Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and tried to do what the Old Man seem to believe as the flawless, sure-fire way to activate my magic; reach to the depth of your soul, to the very root of my being. I did, and it was painful. I didn't know if it was just the adrenaline or it was something else, but every inch in my body burned, as though someone was injecting me with molten iron.

Everything stopped.

Everything calmed.

Silence.

Nothing.

I opened my eyes and saw that I was floating mere milimetres from the surface of the river, a green glow envelopping my body and held me floating in place in utter defiance to the laws of gravity.

"Oh my god." I said to myself, the reflection in the water's surface mimicking my movement. "Fuck yeah! I did it! I did it Old Man!" I shouted in ecstasy before, with a push of my newly acquaired magic, pushed myself up into the top of the cliff and envelopping my Old Man in a full-body hug, still high on the excitement over the fact that, hot fuck, I'm using magic!

"Well, I see you're a pro at this." My Old Man noted. "When I was a kid, it took me around two weeks to activate it. Granted, I used the softer method of meditating instead of a fourty feet free fall but still, you're one impressive dipshit." He grinned, ruffling my hair.

"Hmph! Course I am, shitty Old Man." And then, I coated my legs with magic and kicked him in the shin, pleasantly surprised when he yelped and rubbed the assaulted limb and hopping around in pain. "And that's for pushing me off the cliff, you bastard!" All things considered though..

He wasn't such a bad Old Man.

* * *

 **A/N: And cut! There you have it for the second chapter! What do you think? Is it good? Bad? I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to tell me what you think in reviews. Also, don't hesitate to click that like and follow button, guys!**

 **See ya next chapter!**

 _Coming up next:_

 _"Can you really cook?"_

 _"You're going up against an entire dark guild? Are you insane!?"_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Aww! Only five reviews for the second chap! Granted, the review for chap 1 went up by a bit, but still... Uuhh.. -3-. Anyway, here's the third. It wasn't easy to write this one, considering that I have just finished my exams and my inspiration box is kinda empty at the moment, but I've done it! Heck yeah!**

 **So, let's address the reviewers first. Thank you for replying, as usual, I really appreciate it! Now, let's see here...**

 **First, about the Secondary Magic. Yes. Yes I will definitely give him a Secondary Magic for an added fire power. Maybe even a Third or Fourth magic if it was still possible. Of course, I'm trying to avoid OPness so I doubt it will reach more than three.. I'm currently thinking what elemental magic should I give him. Thoughts, anyone?**

 **Second, to RoyalRavenn, I'm glad that you liked this version better. I'm still trying to calculate the number of chapters I should use for this Childhood Arc, as I'm dubbing it. Oh, and I'll look forward to that fanart.**

 **Third, Weaknesses. Don't worry, RadioPoisoning, I'm working on the limitations of this borderline god-like magic. As I said, I'm trying to avoid OPness so I'll definitely pay extra attention to this. Thanks for the look-out!**

 **Fourth, I was kinda expecting this, Pairings. Well... It's undecided at the moment. I'm open to suggestions so go ahead and go wild, I guess. The Harem route is acceptable too, for now.**

 **Fifth, Character Sheet. Maybe. I've never made one before so I don't know If I could pull it off.**

 **Thanks ArcherShirou, I appreciate it so much.**

 **And that's that I guess. Well, here goes the new chapter. Hoping for ahigher number of Reviews and all sorts of good stuff. Remember to click the fav and follow button as well as review. They're LOVE.**

* * *

 **Chapter 3: The Lost City pt.1**

I dodged a jab to my chest, twisting nimbly to the side before throwing a punch of my own in retaliation, disappointedly watching it miss by a hair's breath from my target's gut before leaping back to avoid a kick that would've forced me to regurgitate my lunch. I spun in mid-air and landed perfectly on my legs, crouching down like a tiger ready to pounce on its prey.

Old Man lurched forward, a punch aimed down onto my face. Utilizing my currently far shorter than him body to its maximum efficiency, I threw myself to the side, effectively dodging his blow and attempted to sweep his feet and trip him.

Keyword being attempted.

My foot met his with a loud smack and I recoiled in pain, quickly performing a handstand before leaping a safe a distance away to try and calm the ache burning on my foot. Seriously, how the hell did his body get so hard? It was as if I was trying to put a dent to a ten-inch thick titanium wall. My theory is that he secretly practices Haki from One Piece. He certainly got the look and attitude of someone from One Piece, so it seriously wasn't that much of a stretch to believe on the conspirative theory my mind cooked up.

"How the hell are you so sturdy!?" My frustration was apparently a source of amusement for him since this question has been left unanswered since pretty much the first day since our first meeting.

"Trade secret!" Fuck you.

When the pain in my leg dulled enough for me to not wince every step I take, I immediately dashed forward, jumping up to my Old Man's height to send a kick to his face. He easily countered my far weaker limb with his own stronger arms. I send a flurry of a kicks and punches to him, all easily blocked or redirected without him even moving from his spot.

Frustrating doesn't even begin to describe him right now.

Finally, having gotten enough of everything, Old Man caught my leg mid-kick and gripped on it, stopping me from performing any follow up attacks and threw me away. I flipped in mid-air and once again landed perfectly on my legs like a cat would.

Old Man clapped his hands, immediately gaining my attention. "Alright, That's enough for today's spar." He announced, earning a sigh of relieve from me before my form sagged and I flopped uselessly to the ground, exhausted from the short spar.

It has been a month since I began my training and the start of our subsequent residentiality within the convines of the quaint little town of Clavel. It was nothing short of grueling and traumatic, and unfortunately for me, it was far from over. However, as much as I hate to admit it, Old Man's torture of a training program was actually working wonders for me. I mean, I think I am now officialy the most firm-built four year old there is.

Standing at a respectable 4'8", which was already taller than most the average boys my age, I already showed signs of slowly developing into my Old Man's body type. I was pretty firm for my age, able to fight toe to toe with most kids twice my own age with the magic reserve of a high D-rank, low C-rank mage, which was to say, pretty impressive for a four year old.

Of course, knowing Lepanto, impressive just not gonna cut it.

So, he always upped the ante for my training in all aspect; physical, magic or otherwise. One month through and I think my senses of pain was halfway dead, or at least thick enough to ignore some pain. My movements, after getting drilled countless of time by the bastard with an iron-hard fist to reinforce the point, was as silent as a shadow's, complete with all the predatory grace of a beast and I think I know at least seven ways to kill a person quickly and cleanly.

I gave up trying to tell him that a four year old shouldn't push his body so hard and instead tried to survive through every gruelling exercise he gave to me. At this point, I just hope that I won't grow into something like Elfman. Urrgh...

Thankfully though, Old Man has the common sense to not go too far in his training methods. As such, most of my current training regime has been focused at building speed, stamina and endurance as well as several other useful tricks such as making a trap, hunting, silent movement, basic hand-to-hand. The last was simply traumatizing in more ways than one.

A piercing cry brought our attention to the sky where a red eagle I now knew from my lessons with Old Man as a messenger hawk flew in circles. My Old Man looked up with something between relieve, annoyance and impatience on his face. How those three emotions could polymerize into one was beyond me, but I've learned my Old Man was a very expressive person when he wanted to be, so combining several emotions together is no biggie for him.

He raised his left hand and the red eagle swooped down from the sky, perching itself carefully on his gauntlet-covered arm. The bird screeched several times, raising its left leg towards the older Bounty Hunter's face to offer the message tied to its legs. With an annoyed scoff, Old Man proceeded to smack the bird on top of the head before throwing it off to the sky.

The bird screamed out its frustration before flying off to god knows where.

I gave him a deadpan. "Was that really necessary?" I felt a sort of kinship with that eagle as two living organism who had had the misfortune of getting up close and personal with the rude bastard known as Lepanto. I mean, he did shove me off a cliff at the beginning of my training and he practically tossed that bird away like a bad cookie. In a twisted sense, we're both victims of abuse.

"That bird lacks etiquette." If that wasn't a case of the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. "That lazy bitch should have trained her pets better." He grumbled.

I wasn't afraid of voicing my mind, though. "Like you're any better." I rolled my eyes at him to which he gave an annoyed stare at me. I skillfully ignored it. "And who the hell is this Lazy Bitch?"

"My informant." Huh. Very Informative. "I finally got a target to hunt. Let's head back, today's training is over."

* * *

The treck back to Clavel was spent with me nursing my bruises and him talking about some deeper stuff about Arc of Embodiment. Frankly, it doesn't make sense to me. Most of the stuff he told me was quickly turning into one of those dolphin shrieks often used to censor stuff in Spongebob as it went through my ears while my eyes turned into confused spirals.

"Do you get it?" He finally asked after preaching a whole five minutes without stopping, not even to take breath, about something along the lines of 'nothingness is bullshit'.

"I think?" I sounded more than a bit unsure about myself. If this is what Lost Magic is all about then I think I knew why they're classified as such in the first place. Most people probably don't bother learning something like this for months compared to learning something as simple as breathing fire in a matter of hours. The few that did probably either had too much time on their hands or, like me, wasn't given much say on the matter.

We arrived in Clavel shortly after the conversation died off and Old Man quickly lead me through the familiar streets I now easily recognized as the path to our inn, Golden Clavel. Ignoring the obvious arrogance in the name, it was a pretty good inn to live in. The room was tidy, the bed was comfortable, the bath was totally awesome and the food was delicious. True, Old Man had to pull some shady string to get a discount, but it was totally worth it.

We made our way through the lobby, ignoring the fearful glances some of he workers threw at us and quickly made our way to our room. Once there, Old Man wasted no time to lock the door and packed in all our stuff.

"So, what's your mission." I've got to admit that I am very excited, this will be the first time I saw my Old Man in action and what his, soon-to-be mine, line of business entailled. My instinct is telling me to expect major baddassery and awesomeness, so it was a bit hard for me to contain my curiosity.

"I've got a report about Oracion Seis, one of the three major dark guilds that made up the Balam Alliance. They're making some very shady movements and their leader, some shit-stain by the name of Brain, is actually reported to be there himself to supervise _something._ " He grinned, fangs glinting under the late morning sun. "How fun."

"What!?" I screamed in outrage. Going against bandits and two-bit Dark Guilds is one thing, but going against the entirety of a major dark guild as prominent and dangerous as Oracion Seis is another. Simply put, it was as crazy as it was suicidal. "Have you lost your mind!? You're going against one of the big three! You could be kill-"

"Whoa, whoa! Stop right there, dipshit." He raised both hands, stopping me in my rant. "Now, I'm not bragging or anything, but I've never chickened out from a hunt since the start of my career. This one is no different." He said.

"Exactly the lines of a short-lived moron." I said. "C'mon Old Man, there's always a first for everything."

"Nope. I'm still going. You need to man up a bit and have some faith in your Old Man. I don't get to survive this long by being a weakling you know." Oh, I know that very well, my leg still hurt from kicking you, y'know? "Think of this as a study trip."

"Arrgh! Whatever! If you get killed, don't go crawling to me!" I huffed.

"You can hardly do a thing, anyway." He scoffed at me, a mocking smile on his face as his orange eyes glinted amusedly.

I huffed and prepared my own bag to pack what little stuff I had. "By the way, where is it exactly?" I asked, excitement flying out the window at the prospect of meeting one of the major villains of this series. Of course, the aces of Oracion Seis wasn't yet collected right now, but Brain himself is not a pushover.

"The Rosswelt Mountains, south from Clavel." He grinned, excited at the prospect of a challenging hunt. "Prepare some winter clothes, dipshit. We're going hiking."

That was all the prompt I needed to get packing.

* * *

"It's cold..." I shivered, suppressing my body' urge to clatter my teeth to the best of my ability. Fuck this mountain, I was drapped in triple layer of extra thick winter jackets as well as a thick scarf, gloves and earmuffs but the cold still pierced me deep into my bones. "How is it so cold in the middle of summer!?"

"The Rosswelt Mountains is always cold, they're almost always covered in snow and, even in summer, blizzard often happens from time to time. That's why many Ice mage in training came here to hone their abilities." He said, also trying his best to suppress the shiver trailing down his spine. He grumbled some profanities under his breath, to low for me to hear with all the winds raging around us. Although, one doesn't need to actually hear it to know that he was cursing the mountains with all the curses known to mankind.

I can't bring myself to fault him, seeing as I was close to freezing to death by this point.

It made me wonder what Brain was searching in a place like this..

"Where was he spotted anyway?" I asked. A part of me, that small vindictive part hiding in the back of my noggin, wished that the man would slip on some slippery footing and crack his head open somewhere deep under the Mountains' freezing abyss. Would have saved me all the trouble and the cold.

"The second mountain in Rosswelt, Edelweiss." Old Man answered, looking at the slightly smaller mountain ahead from us. Despite being smaller, the second mountain was covered in an even thicker layer of snow. It seriously made me even more disinterested to go. Seriously, what is there to see in this winter wasteland?

Snow. That's what.

"Just a passing curiosity, but why exactly are we climbing instead of riding your Manta?" I asked, irritation leaking to my voice as my eyes suddenly narrowed to slits at my Old Man.

He turned and grinned at me. "It's been a while since the last time I went climbing."

I pulled out a paper fan and slapped him on top of the head. "You shitty Old Man!"

* * *

 **A/N: Aaaannnnddd~ Scene! There you have it, guys! What do you think? Good? Bad? I hope it's good! Don't hesitate to let me know what you think on the Review guys!**

 **See ya next chapter!**

 _Coming up next:_

 _"Watch and learn, dipshit. This, is how a pro does his job."_

 _"I don't know if that was excessive narcissism, over-inflated man-pride or he was simply an idiotic man with fetishes for indian clothes but what the hell kind of person wears thin tribal clothing in the middle of a winter wasteland?"_

* * *

 **Other Fic's Progress (FYI)**

 **Trainer: Phantom = 30%**

 **Phantom Wolf = 10%**

 **It's Halloween = 10%**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hiya! I'm back! After a really long while too. Hhh... Author's block is really hitting on me like crazy. I can't find any ideas to write with. Even this chapter is already squeezing through what's left of it. Seriously. Ugh, it's making my head numb!**

 **Anyway, thank you for your continued support and reviews. As usual, I really appreciate all of them! And guess what, there's a good number of them on the previous chap! I'm so happy! Twelve! TWELVE! Thanks a lot guys. So let's answer the questions and suggestions.**

 **Firstly, Pairings. The Shonen Ai route is unfortunately doomed to nonexistence, unfortunately. However, any other candidate such as Mirajane, Cana, etc. is still open into consideration. I'm leaning towards Mirajane for now.**

 **Secondly, Magic. So, I've decided to take Primordial-Chaos85's suggestion with Earth Magic as it was quite convenient and multifunctional. Combined, of course, with originally planed Illusion Magic. Sorry, Angelfaux, but Memory Make and Arc of Embodiment in collaboration is just OP on a whole other level. I think even Makarov would be hard-pressed to fight against those two magic working in conjunction with one another.**

 **Thirdly, plot suggestion from Angelfaux. I'll take some part of it, but the part where he joins Fairy Tail to wait for Erza is a no go. I'll be going solo from there on. Thanks, by the way.**

 **Lastly, Hi Dragon. Long time no see. I've read your reviews and honestly, I don't understand 80% of it. Sorry. Tehee.**

 **Anyhow, thank you all for the continued support and reviews! Don't forget to leave me lots more reviews about what you thought was lacking or good enough in this story, and don't be shy to press on that cute little like and follow button either! Enjoy the chap!**

* * *

 **Chapter 4: The Hunt.**

"W-w-well? Can y-you s-s-see a-anyt-thing?" It almost took me a physical effort just to utter that sentence through the non-stop chattering of my teeth. There was too many close calls on my tongue's well-being for me to count after the first ten minutes of my stay in this god-forsaken mountain. Honestly, just hurry up and die Brain!

"Yeah. They're camping around some sort of cave mouth, I think. Must be searching for something." Old Man answered, gazing through his newly conjured super binoculars which was capable of watching things from a very far distance, like what he was currently doing, and even through harsh weather such as storms, blizzards or thick fog with perfect clarity. The word useful doesn't even begin to describe it.

"B-by the w-way" I began, slowly forcing the word out of my mouth in fear of getting my own tongue bitten off. Actually, now that I think about it, I can't really feel my tongue anymore, nor does my fingers for that matter. Huh. "H-how a-a-are you ab-able to spe-speak n-normall-ly?"

"Ah!" He exclaimed, pulling the classic I-just-remembered-something look commonly seen in anime. Well, _THIS_ is an anime world, so I guess my point doesn't really stand. He rummaged through the stuff he kept close on his person, hidden beneath those layers of extra thick clothing he wore and produced a flask of something that smelt like a very potent alcoholic beverage.

"This is-"

"Nevermind. F-Forget th-that I even a-a-asked." It's not like my body could handle the drink even if I wanted to. After all, I was pretty sure that the kidney and liver of a four, nearing five, year old kid aren't supposed to process potent alcohols. How Cana could do that so early in his life without getting at least ten liver donor was beyond me.

"Your loss." Old Man shrugged nonchalantly and continued on his espionage watch over the group of Dark Mages, keeping a vigilant eye on their activities via his brand new binoculars. I keep myself silent, letting my Old Man work in peace, and amused myself by continuing on my meditation and manipulating the flow of my Magic to pass the time.

And then everything went to hell.

"Shit!" He cursed under his breath, throwing his flask away to quickly grasp the Manta's reins and reassert control over the panicking flying fish as it frantically threw itself to the side to dodge an incoming beam of destructive magical energy. "What the fucking hell are you doing back there, brat?!" He turned to me, orange eyes glaring accusations pointedly to my own panicked golden eyes.

"I did nothing!" I screamed at him as I tried to grab a steady hold on the Manta's back and stop myself from falling and plummeting down to my, undoubtedly, cold and messy death in the mountains deep, dark abyss. It's just a shame that this thing doesn't come with a seatbelt on it, or it would have been a very fantastic transportation. "I'm just meditating and practicing my magic controls!"

"That ain't nothing!" He shouted back, sharply pulling the reins to the right to dodge another incoming beam of green energy. "You're alerting him to our presence by flaring your magic!" He explained, all the while urging the manta to move faster and get away from the persistently chasing beam.

"How should I know that!?" I shouted at him, desperately holding on to the base of the Manta's tail for dear life. Literally.

"It's common sense!" He shouted, turning to me and gestured with a light tilt of his head to come over and help him handle the reins. "What are you doing on that part of the world? Get over here and take over so I can fight back!" Basically, he's tired of running away like a bitch and wanted to teach the bastard, AKA Brain, why he shouldn't mess with someone named after the Spanish war.

"I would if I could!" I hollered, yelping when a stray beam flew close enough to me for me to be able to feel the heat radiating from its light. "Gyaaaa! He almost got me!" I screamed, face paling from the near death experience.

"Tsk. Hold on, puppy!" Who the fuck did he just call a puppy!? Old Man taped his foot twice on the Manta's head and the tail I was holding on to suddenly whipped upwards, throwing me up into the air, eliciting a.. very manly scream out of me. Yes. That's that. Old Man deftly caught me with a single hand before I could finish my downward trip to the ground and subsequently turn into a bloody, human shaped pancake and quickly set me down in front of him, reins shoved into my tiny, calloused hands.

"Pull left to go left, pull right to go right. Whip it up to accelerate and pull it back to slow down. Good luck, Short-stuff." And the nicknames just keep pilling on. Wait, are you just gonna leave me here with the Manta? Seriously? By the way, how are you getting down anyway? You can't possibly be jumpi- Nope, he did it. He seriously did it.

"Watch and learn, dipshit! This is how a pro does his job!" With that, he created a pair of black wings from his back and leapt off of our ride, gliding like an expert through the air and down towards the encampment to get some very serious, upclose and personal session with Brain. Someone's gonna die, that's for sure.

"Drop dead, you shitty Old Man!" I shouted back at him, harrumping in irritation before I was forced to accelerate the Manta or risk obliteration by either the beam or the fall if the Manta was to be killed. "Fuck, fuck! What am I gonna do now?"

On the bright side, My teeth's not gonna go all Mary-Antoinnete-Guillotine-Execution on my tongue anymore. Oh well, time to find a good spot to park the Manta and hide before I got my ass shot with a laser beam.

* * *

"So you have finally decided to show yourself to me, cur?" Brain regarded the winged man dropping down from the sky in front of him with as much condescending amusement as anyone could possibly make in a lifetime, so much so that even Lepanto struggled to stop himself from materializing a chainsaw to rip his face apart and erase the smile off of his face once and for all.

It was just a shame that Brain has picked himself the worse possible enemy in the game of annoying-the-shit-out-of-people. Nobody challenged Lepanto in the bitch-talk game and walk away from it with their pride intact and unscathed.

Taking a quick moment to make sure that he wasn't about to lost his control over the annoyance bubbling inside him and make a mistake and possibly kill his paycheck, Lepanto returned the Dark Mage's condescending smile with his own. "I prefer the term Bounty Hunter. However, I suppose such an advanced vocabulary was beyond your comprehension, am I right, mongrel?"

Brain almost immediately lost his amusement, his face set into a blank visage hiding the cold fury underneath. "What did you just say?" He growled, sickly green aura of pure magic power slowly blazing around him.

Far from being intimidated, the veteran Bounty Hunter continued on his rant. "What? Are you saying that not only is that space inside your head's empty but you're also bad on hearing? My, your mother must not have taken proper care of you when she was pregnant. Then again, if I knew that my child's going to grow into this-" He gestured at the seething Dark Mage's form with a mockingly disgusted and repulsed face. "-abomination, I might just abort you and be done with it."

"Seriously, look at yourself! Who the hell wore indian clothing in the middle of a blizzard? Forget about blizzard, I don't think anyone with half a working brain would ever wear indian clothing in public!" Lepanto snickered to himself, very much aware of the pun in that sentence. Somewhere out there, a child Nab and an old Roubaul sneezed, feeling as if they've just been insulted. "You, sir, is a legit fashion disaster."

Indeed, anyone who had even a modicum of fashion sense would've vomitted rainbows at the sight of Brain's style. He wore an open vest made out of the pelt of some beast instead of a shirt, leaving it open and exposing his torso. Resting on top of his head was the hallowed skull of a bear, looking very much like a crown made out of bone. Following that was a kilt made out of leaves and bones strapped snuggly on his waist. Luckily for Lepanto, Brain still had the decency to wear a pair of white jeans underneath. The Bounty Hunter was internally glad for that, he wasn't really sure if he had the mental fortitude to survive should he accidentally saw something that he shouldn't have in the battle through a flipped kilt.

"That's enough! I shall hear none of this nonsense from you, maggots!" Brain exclaimed, his face twisting into an ugly, wrathful visage that could undoubtedly make babies cry with just one glance.

"For the record, 'maggots' is a plural whereas I am only a single person. Please, come back when you've finally learnt proper grammar." Lepanto waved his arms dismissively at the fuming Dark Mage who was literally seconds away from exploding, even going so far so as to make a show of casually honing his nails as if he wasn't about to fight a Dark Mage of very prominent reputation.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

 **"Dark Capriccio!"** Brain raised Klodoa, the skull-topped staff he had been gripping, and fired a bright green colored beam from the jewels stuck between the skull on top of the staff.

Lepanto leapt to the side, dodging the beam that was aimed right to his chest with the intent to no doubt blow a hole right through him. "Oooh! You're playing a dangerous game, Brain." He flashed him his signature predatory grin, sharp canines glinting under the dim light. "Two can play that game."

 **"Dark Capriccio!"** Once again, another beam made its way to him and just as easily, Lepanto leapt away and dodged the beam. "Stop dodging, you worm! **Dark Capriccio!"** Lepanto vaulted over the incoming attack, looking quite amused at the attempt to harm him.

"Yeah, how about no." He deadpanned. "But I've got to say, you're quite the one trick pony. All you did was fire the beam at me, which is quickly becoming boring. How about I liven up the atmosphere a lil' bit, just to make things more interesting?" Bright orange aura began to coalesce around him as he let loose his control over his magic power.

 **"Cerberos."** A pack of oversized, overgrown three-headed dogs on steroids with bulging muscles, burning red-eyes, dagger-like claws and fangs as well as hellfire for mane appeared behind him, growling and barking at the lone man standing opposite of their master. Drool dripped down their gaping maws in excess, sizzling as the foul substance made contact with the snow covered ground.

 **"Garuda."** A sudden screech brought Brain's attention away from the growling pack of mutts in front of him and the flock of man-sized birdmen encircling them in the sky, their form barely visible from behind the blizzard. They were large humanoids with the head of a bird, the torso of a man and hands and legs of a bird's talons. On their back, was a pair of massive wings.

 **"Verdugo."** A massive T-shaped claymore made out of obsidian-like steel appeared on his hand, bearing the inscription of _Game-Over_ on its black blade. Lepanto gave a fond smile and gripped the handle to the oversized weapon, lifting it as easily as one did a twig.

"You best be careful, Brain." A bloodthirsty smile made its way upon his face, the blade in his hand glowing and shaking in response to his bloodlust. "My beasts is especially cruel to the sinful."

 **To Be Continued.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Fang : Been a while since I went and updated this fic. Sigh.. surviving everything highschool throws my way is certainly a challenge. Test, Party, Test, Test, Project, some more Test, another Party, etc etc. Anyway, I'm back! So, here is another chapter right here for you! **

**So, I've got some really interesting questions and stuff from the previous reviews, which is only five, which is really sad, but yeah- I survived. Anyway, I'm going to answer those but first, say hello to Talon!**

 **Talon : Hiya! *Waves around, throwing confetti* It's good to be back! **

**Fang : Anyway, Lil' bro, read the first question please. _*_ Sweeps the confetti somewhere***

 **Talon : From RadioPoisoning, **_Is Axel going to abandon the bounty hunter career (promising and unique plot opportunities ) to go to Fairy tail (done and redone plot choice)?_ _Will he meet Erza as a kid or will the meeting begin later during one of the FT story arcs?_ _As for the love interests, Please Pleeease don't romance a FT mage but go for someone more unique or rather les prominent (basically in every fic the protagonist romances wither Erza or Mirajane and it's getting boring)._ **Detailed.**

 **Fang : Yeah. So, we're still fifty-fifty on the first question, though we're leaning to the Bounty Hunter , we can succeed. He'll meet Erza as a kid, actually. Later, he would visit her in Magnolia from time to time. Lastly, Erza is definitely a no go unless I fancy Incest, which I didn't. Mirajane, Cana, Lucy, Angel/Sorano, or any other girls is open for a choice though.**

 **Talon : No Harem Route? **

**Fang : Nope. Honestly, its a subject to change. **

**Talon : Moving on! From Guisniperman, not exactly a question but yeah.. **_Baddass level... Unmeasureable._

 **Fang** **: Thanks man! Glad you liked it. I myself think it could've been better. Like, more dramatic flair to the summoning and so on..**

 **Talon : It's a suggestion, from an anonymous GUEST. Hey, it's pretty good, actually. Why haven't you think of that, anyway? Don't you say that you're smart or- **

**Fang : I did think of that. It's just that when my Inspiration Box decided to take a vacation leave everything stops working and no matter how much I tried everything went down to the Crap Box! And did you just imply that I'm stu- **

**Talon : Moooving on! Next, we got AngelFaux on the list. **_Despite being short it was a good chapter and while I'm a bit disappointed it won't be a shounen ai I'll still read it. A suggestion on explaining how Axel's dad knows arc of embodiment is that their ancestor made it and one of the few remaining records on it has been passed down through generations. Oh and a suggestion for axel's monsters could be the bakugan and he could learn transformation magic since once its mastered its only limit is imagination of the user._ **Wow. You got yourself a dedicated reader.**

 **Fang : ****Thank you so much for giving us the chance! I promise I'll try and not let you down and make it as good as I could. The suggestion is plausible but more onto the fact that Axel's dad's ancestor used it for generations. Kinda like a family art. Bakugan? I've never thought of them. I'll see what I can do with those.**

 **Talon** **: Lastly, from Vulkhanos,** _This is a very interesting story idea, im liking it, and i hope we can see more soon. Also im wondering how long the axel childhood arc is gonna last cuz i really want him to meet erza and fairy tail.(make him op as fuck)_

 **Fang : Yeah, the Childhood Arc is drawing to a close.. maybe three chapters more if I'm rushing it and four at the rate I'm going. The OP as fuck part is doomed though. Sorry. **

**I guess that's all. So, remember to leave me some reviews about your thoughts. Flames will be ignored, of course. Don't hesitate to click on the like and follow button too! Enjoy the chap!**

* * *

 **Chapter 5: The Hunt Pt.2**

"Impressive." Brain noted to himself, admiring the unknown magic at work before him. "My Archive doesn't recognize this magic, what manner of sorcery is this, Cur?" Still with that somewhat arrogant tone, the S-class criminal inquired his puzzlement. Although, in Lepanto's mind, it was more like a demand for answer instead of a polite inquiry, what with the insult at the end of his question.

In response, Lepanto let out his trademark smirk, one that often made his son tear his own hair out of his scalp in frustration. "What kind of idiot would ask that kind of question to their foe and expect an answer?" He quipped, causing a vein to bulge on the Dark-mage's forehead in his growing anger. "Enough chit chat, I need the money promised on your head if I were to get my dinner and last the month. Kindly, die for me." That was apparently the signal for the three-headed hellhounds to start their rampage and for the Garudas to start their assault on the lone dark mage before them.

"I see." He said, casually dodging a cerberus who tried to pounce on him before he shot it directly in the stomach with his Darkness Magic, creating a hole through the hound's body. "Very well, I shall teach you why I'm one of the most feared Dark-mage in Earthland!"

"And I keep telling you to hurry and die. **Taimatsu** (Torch) **!** **"** A jet of flame blasted out of his palm, exploding outwards with the force of a bomb and turning the surrounding area into a burning inferno.

Brain leapt out from the flames, his body somehow only sustaining minimal injury despite the fire blast and the subsequent explosion that followed it. Lepanto whistled in appreciation. "Whew, you're durable. I kinda hoped you'd be a roast inside the inferno.. but yeah, not happening." The Bounty Hunter shrugged in mock disappointed, his sagged posture belying the bloodlust raging beneath.

 **"Dark Capriccio!** Begone from my sight, you thrash!" A sickly green beam of compressed Darkness was shot from the tip of his staff, rocketing towards the Bounty Hunter at breakneck speed.

In response, Lepanto gripped his oversized claymore with one hand while charging up another spell in the other. Quick as lightning, the veteran bounty hunter swung his blades at the incoming spell, cleanly slicing it in two and sending both halves far off to the side, successfully protecting himself before he retaliated by shooting a multicolored beam of compressed heat, not fire, but pure heat.

 **"Mosou** (Heat Wave) **!"** He roared, pointing his outstretched palm, and the Heat Wave, right towards the Dark-mage who hastily prepared another beam to hold back the attack.

 **"Scream!"** A stronger and faster version of the Dark Capriccio was fired from the tip of his staff, traversing the distance in the time it took for one's eyes to blink, and clashed against the beam of pure, concentrated heat, holding it back into a standstill as both mages struggled to strengthen their respective spell and overpower the other.

"Are you sure you should be focusing on me?" Lepanto grinned, watching at the rest of his Cerberus quickly converged around the preoccupied Brain, growling and snapping their fang-filled jaws at him. One brave hellhound took a leapt and safely lodged its jaws onto Brain's thigh, its other two head following suit a moment later by planting their fangs on the side of his stomach and his heels respectively.

"UUURKKKHHH...!" Brain groaned in pain as the Cerberus on his leg started to shake their head, trying to rip his flesh apart. With the pain, came a decrease in focus on Brain's part, something that Lepanto was quick to capitalize on by pushing his Heat Wave further against the Screaming Dark Capriccio.

Emboldened by their comrades success, the Cerberus, as one, pounced on the currently immobile Dark-mage, intent on ripping him apart into an unrecognizable mess of blood and gore. Realizing their chance, the Garudas started to furiously flap their massive wings, releasing their dart-like feather on their unmoving target.

Trapped from all size with overwhelming offense and equipped with little defense, Brain realized that for once, he couldn't save himself from danger. With nothing else to lose and more to gain, Brain did something that he never thought he would do out of his own will.

Thus, the beast within went unchained and resurfaced.

 **"Dark Rondo!"** The beam of darkness ceased its struggle against the Heat Wave, momentarily letting the Fire Magic continue its trek towards the Dark-mage before it slammed into an wide-area explosion of green energy, causing another massive explosion to rock the area.

How they haven't been buried under tons of snow was something Lepanto continued to wonder at the back of his mind.

"Oh yeah, bitches! I'm back in the GAAAMMMEEEE!" Out of the resulting smoke, out came the mostly unscathed, but still profusely bleeding Brain. Only this time, the S-class Dark-mage came with a new look; A pair of wide red-eyes and a much, much more psychotic grin. Lepanto took note of this new development and stored it for later.

"Did you hit your head, Brain?" That was a pretty good pun, Lepanto smirked to himself. "You look infinitely madder than before. Well, as madder as someone wearing an indian-style clothing in a freakin' blizzard could get." He jabbed.

"No, no, no!" He tut-tutted at him, the action somehow came out a bit off-putting with the wide red-eyes and insane grin on his face. "I'm Zero! The other side of Brain!" He exclaimed.

 _'A split personality? Never knew this guy had something like this up in his head. With a name like Brain, you'd think he was at least right in the head... Guess I was wrong.'_ Lepanto thought to himself, sweatdrop trailing the back of his head in exasperation at the sudden realization of how ironic Brain's existance truly was.

"Here I go, fuckeeer! **Dark Delete!"** Pointing both his index and middle finger towards him, the berserk Dark-mage wasted no time to bombard the Bounty Hunter with dozens upon dozens of destructive green bullets.

"Ooh, It's the wild west now, eh? I can play that. **Higan** (Fire Gun) **!"** Lepanto swiftly let go of his claymore before pointing his index and middle finger towards the incoming Basketball-sized projectiles, shooting out small burst of flames to counterattack. While the Fire Gun is several levels weaker than the Dark Delete's projectiles in strength, it's firing speed far outclasses the Darkness Magic, so it can stop the attack with some effort.

The Garudas, having been circling safely on their element up in the sky and thus, safe from total annihilation like the Cerberus, quickly resumed their offense, pelting the berserk Dark-mage with dart-feathers from their wings and dive-bombing from the sky for some physical attacks.

" **Dark Gravity!"** An eldritch green light glowed from the ground as Brain slammed both of his palms downward. Suddenly, as if pulled by magnet, all the dart-feathers thrown at him was pulled directly into the ground where they lodged themselves with a dull thud. Moments later, unable to bear with the heavy pull of the increased gravity, the Garudas too, were pulled down to the ground, where they were easily dispatched with a few well-aimed Dark Delete, courtesy of Zero.

Lepanto clapped, a sly grin on his face. "Congratulations on killing all my low-level minions. You must be proud of yourself." He said.

"Soon, It'll be your turn!" The insane other half of Brain growled, his mad grin widening across his face, almost from ear to ear. "I'll end your existence! I'll slaughter you with my own hands until there's nothing left but a bloody smear on the snow!" Lepanto regarded the threat to his life with as much attention as someone would a child claiming that he managed to pull down the moon.

With an equally blood-thirsty grin on his face, the veteran Bounty Hunter began to leak his own bloodlust. "Big words for a wounded madman! Let's see if you can back up your threat, eh?" With that, Lepanto picked up his Claymore and dashed forward, his form little more than a black and orange blur to the naked eye.

"You're the one who's going to die, WORM!"

 **"Shakuran Senki** (Burning Annihilation Demon) **!"** Red-flames, burning as hot as the flames of hell, wreathed itself upon the length of his massive sword just as it clashed against the magic staff of Brain, Klodoa.

 _"Gyaaaaah! It's hot! I burn! I BURN! I BUUUUURRRNNN!"_ The Skull attached to the top of the staff screamed in pain as it was used to repeatedly redirect the Verdugo's heavy, and not to mention scorching, slashes.

"Shut your trap, you useless piece of wood!" Zebro growled, causing the staff to went stiff in what Lepanto assumed was fear. "If you talk on more time, I'll snap you and then turn you into chopsticks, you got that?" The skull on top of the staff nodded itself rapidly, but it heeded its wielder's order and stayed silent for the sake of its prolonged existence.

"Ignoring me, did'cha?" A massive, burning-red sword shrouded in flames was swung towards his head with the intention of relieving him of his life and Zero hastily leaned back, barely dodging the burning sword with his life. Quickly, the Dark Mage retaliated by sending a kick straight to the Bounty Hunter's chin, flinging him back and giving him some much needed space.

 **"Zero Slash!"** Dark magic gathered at the tip of his fingers, the sickly green hue of its color bathing the destroyed campsite an eldritch green before it shot forward, a beam of destructive magic, straight towards the bored-looking, firesword-wielding Bounty Hunter.

"Don't you have other strategies to play with?" Lepanto asked, face set into a dull visage filled with boredom at the sight of yet another green energy beam. "It's getting slightly boring to deal with all these beams.." He commented, casually holding his massive claymore in front of him, ready to once again slice the incoming beam in two.

In response, Zero grinned madly, looking decidedly too gleeful to be anything good for the Bounty Hunter's health. "'S dat soo~?" He flicked his fingers and Lepanto noticed a tad bit too late that the 'beam' coming towards him wasn't actually a beam and was instead, a whip.

"Shit!" The previously straight whip wavered, twisting and bending like a goddamn snake on crack before it smacked him in his midriff, throwing him away while simultaneously securing a strong grip on him by coiling itself on his torso. He was slammed harshly into a cliff, the cold surface of the stone structure cracked and broke under the pressure before he was dragged across the rough surface by a swing of the Dark Mage's hand.

 **-XxXxX-**

"C'mon Old Man! Kick his ass!" I cheered, internally fanboying at this once-in-a-lifetime chance to see an epic, magic battle between two S-class mages. This is so much cooler than all those fights I watched in my laptop that it felt slightly surreal to me, even as I continued to watch with Old Man's loaned SuperBinoculars.

Finding a landing spot with a good vantage point hadn't been as difficult as I had previously imagined. With the height the Manta was flying by and Old Man doing a wonderful job fighting Brain and taking his attention away from me and the Manta, it doesn't take more than a handful of minutes to spot a cliff a distance away from ground-zero, far enough that we would be safe from any stray spells flying around but close enough to let me watch.

The only thing that could make this even better an experience was a thick blanket, a campfire and a cop of chocolate with Marshmallows as a side dish.

A man can dream.

"Hey! Watch out, that's the whip thingy! Dodge!" He cried out, watching through his binoculars while his other hand keeps on rummaging the his bag. "Dammit, are you serious right now!? ..Where the hell is my popcorn stash when I need it!?" He growled furiously under his breath.

A few ways away, the Manta could only stare and sweatdrop at its creator's son. Weird, that boy.

 **-XxXxX-**

"..That actually stings a bit!" Lepanto commented, smirking ruefully as he traced his fingers on the bruise slowly but surely forming on his midriff where the whip-like spell of Brain had coiled itself around him. "Tsk. Definitely gonna leave a mark."

He'd regained his bearings somewhere along all those irritating slamming and the dull throbs of getting your head bashed into a cold, hard stone structure repeatedly in the span of five minutes and, with a quick swing of Verdugo's massive length, released himself from his bindings, resuming the fight with even more ferocity.

Zero aimed his fingers forward, shooting a dozen spheres of his green Darkness Magic at him. "Die! die die die DIE!"

Verdugo's burning red, fire-covered blade flashed, blurring as it cleaved each and every single one of the approaching attack in half, destroying them before they could even hope to touch the Bounty Hunter.

 **"Dark Rondo!"** Zero raised Klodoa, the gem trapped between the skull's jaw glowing an ominous green as a large Magic Circle appeared beneath them. Dark magic power, horror-stricken faces etched in their writhing, gaseous form, rose from the ground and coalesced around the magic staff, forming a massive sphere of condensed Darkness Magic.

Zero brought his staff down. **Dark Rondo** pulsed, exploding with enough force to rock the entire mountain and finally bringing the avalanche that Lepanto had previously dreaded.

"Tsk! That bastard, trying to flee from me, eh?" Lepanto gripped his massive claymore, feeding more magic to the flame covering its form, increasing its heat and power. The Avalanche drew closer still, while Zero quickly hightailed it out of the vicinity, sending one last parting smirk his way. "I'll show you not to turn your back on me! **Shakuran Senki** (Burning Annihilation Demon) **!"** With a mighty heave, Lepanto swung the massive claymore.

The world exploded, dyed a horrifying shade of vermillion.

"Whoops. Guess I overdid it." Lepanto smirked, eyeing the sea of flames burning before his eyes. "Just kidding. Now, where the hell did that bastard go?" Without even turning his head to look back, the bounty hunter transformed his body to flame and dispersed, casually dodging a bolt of lightning sent his way by a group of Dark Mage.

"Well now, so much of you just for little old me." Lepanto cackled, eyeing the gathered Dark mage obviously under Brain's command hungrily as he tried to calculate the value of their worth if they were to be handed over to the rune knights. He was quite pleased to find that they were worth a notable amount of fortune combined. Suprising since they were mostly made up by no-names. "Way to make a guy feels special."

"You're outnumbered and surrounded. Surrender now, thrash, and we might spare your pitiful life." One of the braver individuals among the group declared loudly, aiming a charged fire spell at him.

"Pffttt!" Lepanto did a spit-take right then and there as the brave Dark Mage's word finally registered itself on his head. "Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha" And then proceeded to break down into an uncontrollable fit of guffaws.

"... W-what is so funny!?"

"Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!" He laughed loud and hard, uncaring of the threat to his life or the ultimatum declared by the Dark Mage. The notion of a lackey, unknown, weak, little lackey, with probably as much skill as a C-rank mage or less threatening him who had beaten their boss and sends him fleeing with his tail between his legs was the funniest thing to have happened to him in this whole business. "You're hilarious! That's it, I've decided! I might not get your boss, but I'll content myself with you small-fries!"

There was a moment of silence before an entire guild's worth of mages started firing their spells at him. Fireballs, lightning bolt, high-pressure water, ice spikes, boulders, light bullet, and all sorts of other magic of all kinds and elements was shot at him.

His response?

 **"Arc of Embodiment."**

 **-XxXxX-**

"Are you sure it's a good idea to haul them up this way?" I asked, eyeing the... what was that word again? Ah, right. Catch. That was the word he used to describe all of the dark mages that made up the entirety of Brain's group who was currently enjoying a very inhospitable stay in a large birdcage tied to another Manta. "I mean, the ropes you used to hang the birdcage might snap and they might fall to their deaths."

The Dark Mages whimpered at the very real possiblity of their demise.

"If that happens wouldn't you lost your earnings?" I asked. It slightly worried me that I started to objectify human lives, comparing their worth to that of money. I mean, sure, I'm not the most moraly straight guy in my previous life -playing games like CoD and stuff makes you slightly desentisized to death and violence- but comparing life with money? That's walking to the red-zone.

Obviously, I've got no one but Old Man to blame for this. Bad influence doesn't even begin to describe him anymore.

"I'm sure they can survive. If they can't, they shouldn't have started a career as a mage in the first place." The Dark Mages started to pray to whatever religion they're a part of, crying to the sky while asking for salvation against the cruelty of the devil in human skin that was my Old Man.

That, was a very apt description of him.

I shrugged at him, finding it too much of a hassle to persuade him to do otherwise. "Suit yourself." The Dark Mages started to cry harder as the last of their hope to at least be carried safely to their prison was snuffed out in front of their eyes.

"You bastards are annoying!" Old Man roared at them, shutting them up from their gross snivelling. "If you don't shut up for the next hour or so, I'll cut that fucking rope and let you drop down to the abyss below, got that?" They nodded mutely, too scared to do anything else. "Good."

The ride was spent in silence, mostly because I was focusing my attention on manipulating my magic and circulating it all over my body while my Old Man wasn't in the mood for small talks and jokes, brooding in his corner while directing the Manta to the nearest human civilization to trade his catch with some much needed cash and the Dark Mages, well they're too scared to even twitch with my Old Man's eye trailing towards them every minute or so.

Talk about awkward.

"You practicing again?" Old Man suddenly asked, sending me a quick glance as if to make sure that I was still alive.

"Mmh.." I grunted, nodding my head in confirmation. "I want to get better ASAP."

"Good." He nodded, giving me a small smile. Then, it quickly turned into a deadpan. "On second thought, stop that. You're distracting me."

Sigh... This is going to be a really long journey.

 **-XxXxX-**

"Bounty Hunters, huh?" The captain of the Rune Knight stationed at Clavel eyed us skeptically, even more so when he laid his gaze upon the Dark Mages huddling together in fetal positions inside the bird cage. "And these is the Dark Mages you caught? Are you sure you didn't kidnap them from an asylum or something?"

Old Man palmed his face, sighing at the questionable sanity of the idiots he'd captured with his own two hands. "Yes. I fought the lot of them myself at the top of Edelweiss along with the S-rank Dark Mage, Brain, and I'm sure that people have a tad bit of common sense in the space inside their head to not build an asylum in a tundra." He answered, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"Alright, alright. I can see the Oracion Seis mark on their coats., anyway." The Captain nodded at him. Pulling several wad of banknotes and pushing it towards Old Man across the table. "700.000 Jewel for the lot of them." He said.

Old Man eyes bulged out of their socket, mouth gaping as he repeatedly pointed his shaky finger towards the cageful of Dark Mages and the wad of money on the table, staring at the nodding Captain with disbelief and indignation on his face. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yes." The Captain smirked. "Yes I am."

"900.000 Jewel." Old Man said. "There's a bunch of them in there! Easily numbering on the fourty and I expect better than this!" He pointed to the banknotes stacked on the table.

"780.000 Jewel." The Captain bargained. "I think they hardly knows a thing about their boss' plans for the future. They might even be nothing but cannon-fodder hired for muscle-work." He reasoned.

"You don't know that." Old Man scowled. "Make it 880.000 and I'm sold."

"800.000 Jewels."

"I'm dead set on 840.000 and that's final." He declared.

"Tsk. Fine. You win. You get your 840.000 Jewel." The Captain sighed, pulling out some more money from his drawer and adding it to the stack on the table. "It's always money with you Bounty Hunters. No wonder most of the higher ups hate your kin's guts." He commented, taking a drag of his cigarette before exhaling a puff of smoke, causing me to gag lightly at the smell.

"Money." Old Man began, snatching the stack from the table and began to count them rapidly as though they might disappear if he were any second slower. "Is what keeps the world goin' round, what keeps that stomach of yours full and that cigarette of yours burning. You gotta appreciate that, captain." He smirked, tapping the last wad as a sign that the amount was spot on.

"Hah!" The Captain scoffed. "True, true."

"Indeed, I am." Old Man stood from his seat, sending a smirk at the captain. "Pleasure doing business with ya."

"The pleasure's all yours. My wallet feels terribly empty right now." He grouched, eliciting a roaring laugh from my Old Man as he made his way out. "Get that blood-thirsty grin out of my sight, you're destroying the taste of my beer!"

"Did the two of you seriously just bargained on the price of those people?" I questioned.

"Haggling is a form of art no Bounty Hunter is without." Old Man said sagely, nodding along to his own words as though he was parting upon me the words of wisdom directly dictated from the gods. It was ridiculous, to be completely honest. "And yes, we do it from time to time."

"Unbelievable."

 **To Be Continued**

* * *

 **A/N: Woohoo! Done! What do you think? Good? Bad? Leave me some comments on the review and don't forget to click the like and follow button guys! See you next chapter!**

 **Silvershark out!**


	6. Character Sheet

**A/N: Here's a Character Sheet as requested by Angelfaux** in **the** previous **chapter.**

* * *

 **Name:** Lepanto

 **Title:** Bad Karma, Miser, Old Man

 **Occupation:** S-rank Mage, Bounty Hunter

 **Appearance:** Lepanto is a tall man in his late twenties, standing at a respectable height of 6'3 with a lean, muscular figure as well as an extraordinary amount of scars littering his body, both gained through years of experience in his field of business. He has a spiky, predominantly black hair, though the left-side of his hair is streaked with white and the part in between was shades of grey. His eyes was an, in Axel's words, intense and unusual shade of orange -like amber. He also had a scar going down the side of his left cheek, it is apparently, the first scar he ever got in his work.

His choice of clothing consist of a black, open-collared, long sleeved shirt, a pair of black pants and a pair of armoured boots. His arms was covered with a pair of orange vambraces, decorated with black accents while on his back, strapped by a single belt, was his prized treasure; his Sword.

 **Personality:** Outside of his job, Lepanto is quite laid back, prefering to sit by a river and fish some trout. Despite his fishing hobby though, Lepanto isn't a man known for his patience. In fact, he was quite the opposite as well as being very vindictive. He was also a very well-known miser, so much so that most of his colleagues and underworld contacts learned not to put their hopes on him in terms of financial assistance. Other than that, he was quite gruff and a little bit down-to-earth.

In combat, however, you'll find that he was almost an entirely different person. Lepanto was known to be a very brutal and ruthless fighter, utilizing moves and spells that was guaranteed to at least injure the victim with lethal strength and an even worse speed. He was also very provocative, utilizing every single opportunity to goad his foes by the means of insult into making a mistake or stepping into a trap. Also, he was slightly sadistic and easily gets irritated when his preys managed to escape from him.

He secretly had a soft spot for his son, and was actually very proud of his determination.

 **Likes:** Fishing, forest, fighting, money, his Sword, roasted pork.

 **Dislikes:** Snobby Nobles, blizzards, being broke, splurging, books, people who did their job half-assedly.

* * *

 **Parameters:**

 **STR:** A -Lepanto has exhibited a huge amount of strength, capable of lifting and effectively wield a claymore of such ordinary size and weight such as Verdugo without slowing or decreasing his fighting prowess.

 **AGI:** N/A -He hasn't shown much in the speed department. However, if Axel's training is anything to go by, then he was at least faster than B-rank mages, putting him in the same leagues with the A-ranks.

 **END:** A -Lepanto has extreme amount of stamina and pain endurance. He was capable of matching Brain in a clash of spells repeatedly before directly engaging him in a fast-paced close quarter combat as well as taking massive amount of beating that could kill any lesser man.

 **MAN:** S -Due to his continued use of Arc of Embodiment, a brand of magic that wasn't exactly kind to its user's magic reserve, as well as wide-area Fire Spells, Lepanto had an extremely vast reserve of magic, enough that he could spawn an army of monsters without looking any less for wear. Combine that with his near perfect control of his magic, then you get yourself a walking Ethernano battery.

 **INT:** B- -Lepanto is more instinct-oriented than he is with book-knowledge, the only book he would willingly touch are Maps, Magic Tomes, Porn, Sorcerer Magazine, and Business Encyclopedia. He believes his gut more than his head, evidence with his somewhat lacking common sense.

* * *

 **Skills and Abilities:**

 **Arc of Embodiment:** A lost, Caster-type magic that allows the caster to materialize, and subsequently use to their every whim, anything they can imagine. Any of their creations give them great versatility both in and out of combat. They can range anywhere from everyday objects and weapons to more complex creations, even living ones, or even simple images of whatever may be on the user's mind. These creations are also given special properties that goes accordingly to what they are. It has been stated that there are several limits and conditions to this Magic.

- **Cerberus:** Conjures a pack of three-headed, flaming hellhound. They're immune to Fire-magic

- **Garuda:** Conjures a flock of birdmen. They're immune to Wind Magic

- **Kasso Manta:** Conjures a massive, black Manta ray. It is capable of flight while lacking any kind of offensive capabilities, thus it was mainly used for transportation as it is strong enough to carry a group of six and some luggage.

- **Verdugo:** Conjures a large T-shaped claymore capable of cutting through magic spells.

 **Fire Magic:** A Caster-type Elemental magic. It is a form of Magic that revolves around the use of fire, allowing the caster to conjure, manipulate, and control the element for various purposes. The caster can change the properties of this Magic such as its "form", allowing it to take shape as a gas or solid element. The color of this Magic can also change, ranging from purple, red, blue and yellow. Fire Magic can also work in a similar fashion to explosives. The caster is able to conjure this element from various parts of their body or from the nearby surroundings, though it is possible for weapons to use fire as well.

- **Higan** _(Fire Gun)_ : Shoots off a barrage of fast-moving bullets of flame towards the enemy. Activated by making the traditional gun hand symbol.

- **Mosou** _(_ _Heat_ _Wave)_ : Fires a translucent, multi-colored beam of pure, compressed heat into the enemy. The heat produced by this technique is hot enough to melt the surrounding snow as well as the rock into a puddle of magma as well as distorts the air when used in the battle against Brain before it finally exploded.

- **Taimatsu** _(Torch)_ : Fires a stream of fire hot enough to eradicate most things in its range of explotion.

- **Shakuran Senki** _(Burning Annihilation Demon)_ : A spell that was used to imbue an object with monstrous, super-hot flame. The longer the spell is kept in effect, the stronger it would be. By swinging the object imbued with the spell, one can release the accumulated power gained by the flame in the form a massive explosion, capable of blowing the top of a mountain completely off.

 **Illusion Magic** **:** A form of Magic that revolves around the use of illusions, allowing the caster to create illusions that deceive even respectable Mages of the Ten Wizard Saints.

 **Armed Combat Specialist**

 **CQC Specialist**

 **Master Tracker**

 **Expert of Bitch-talking.**

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 **Name:** Axel

 **Title:** -

 **Occupation:** Apprentice

 **Appearance:** Axel is a relatively tall five year old kid, with a well-muscled built gained from the hardcore training with Lepanto and tanned skin similar in tone to that of his father. In his words, he looked too much like him for his liking, so much so that he called himself Lepanto's mini-clone. His hair matched that of his father, spiky, predominantly black before gradually shifting to white on his left side. His eyes, however, matched that of his mother's, a shade of vivid gold.

For his outfits, Axel prefered simple things like shirts and pants. Really, as long as it is durable and comfortable, Axel would probably be find with it. That'll probably change though, since Axel himself secretly wanted a cool battle outfit.

 **Personality:** Axel was pretty similar to his father in terms of personality, having a tendency to curse like a sailor just like him. Aside from that, the next notable thing about his personality was his stubborness, evidence by him persevering on the hellish training set by his father even though it shouldn't be possible for a child of his age to continue to do so. Another thing to note is that Axel is slightly moraly-unstraight, as he said so himself. In other words, he doesn't mind killing as long as it is a last resort or it gets the job done quick. He also has a competitive and rebelious streak.

Axel is also prone to fits of fanboying, especially at his favourite characters as well as epic moments. He is also a splasher, having developed a habit in his old life to spend his hard earned money in a single day. On a side note, Axel is a glutton.

 **Likes:** Money, splurging, Lasagna, summer, epic fights, fighting, gambling, games

 **Dislikes:** Studying, being bored, Broccoli, being sick, getting defeated or failing

* * *

 **Parameters**

 **STR:** E+ -Since he trained himself down to the ground almost everyday, Axel possessed extraordinary strength even though he was a child, capable of matching someone twice his age with some effort. According to Lepanto, he won't be developing anymore until he grow some more.

 **AGI:** E+ -The same reason for his extraordinary strength also applies to his speed. According to Lepanto, he won't be developing anymore until he grow some more.

 **END:** D -Having pushed his body to its utmost limit everyday, Axel has developed a decent amount of stamina.

 **MAN:** D -Due to constant practice with the manipulation of the flow of his magic, Axel has a pretty decent magic reserve in him.

 **INT:** B -Since he was an adult in a child's body, it was pretty obvious that Axel is a bright child.

* * *

 **Skills and Abilities:**

 **Hand-to-Hand Combat**


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N: Holla! I'm back with another chapter! I've gotta say that I'm pretty pumped up for this fic. So much ideas randomly popping up in my brain. Anyway, this is it! I hope you guys enjoy it. It took a while to write this with everything going on in life. Anyway, There's a pretty good number of reviews on the previous chapter! I'm so happy!**

 **Alex the God Killer: I'm basing his personality off of Kakuzu, only toned down to a manageable level.**

 **RadioPoisoning: He probably could've had him if he didn't throw that last attack and called for his henchmen to stall. Thanks for the suggestion! Sorano would be quite interesting, although now that I've checked once more, Hisui the princess could be an interesting pairing too. I don't know, I'm never any good with romance! (So sad..)**

 **Guisniper: Uh-huh. Very true. That's a very interesting humor scene, right there.**

 **Angelfaux: Thanks!**

 **Little Puppy: Thanks! Hmm.. the next chapter should be where Erza's first debut is.**

 **Kaizero6: Katana is obviously a good choice. That, or the standard broadsword or cutlass.**

 **Nakedfury: Glad you liked the premise. I agree, they're everywhere.**

 **All About Party And Crazy: Thank you, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

 **There you go! I hope you guys liked this chapter! Any comments and building critics are welcome, but flame will be deleted. Don't forget to click the follow and Like button guys!**

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Steps to Progress**

Old Man hummed pleasantly, silently enjoying the warm morning sun on his skin. "Aah..." He sighed, totally relaxed. "Nothing beats the fresh morning air. Wouldn't you say so, lil' guy?" He sent a smirk my way, his smile gaining a bit more sadistic tint to its otherwise pleasant exterior, telling me that he very much enjoyed the moment.

I grunted, sweat trailing down my face as I tried to balance the weight of two bucket-full of water while standing on a goddamn bamboo stick. Actually, I was just being overdramatic and that goddamn stick I was talking about was really just a piece of bamboo the size of an adult man's palm. "F-fuck you, you sadistic bastard!" I hissed at him even as the action caused the thin piece of wood I was standing on to shake minutely.

I've been standing on top of this god-forsaken bamboo stick since dawn, shirtless with only my boxers to protect me from the cold breezes of the morning wind, which, admittedly wasn't really doing as splendid a job as I've initially hoped, as a part of the balance training. At first, Old Man left me alone to my devices, opting to snipe down some unfortunate deer that crossed our path. That quickly turned boring to him, however, so he turned his attention to the one thing that was guaranteed to amuse him; Me.

"Now, now." He placated. "Focus on your balance, pipsqueak. **Higan!** " A small projectile made out of flame shot out of his fingers and grazed the side of the log I was standing, rocking it dangerously even as I flailed about on top of it, trying to prevent it and myself from reacquainting ourselves with the cold hard ground.

"Piss off, you prick!" I growled at him before, with a startled yelp, fell from the toppling bamboo stick I was standing on. Landing painfully on my back, drenched from head to toe in cold water, I quickly shot an annoyed look to my snickering Old Man and glowered at him. "Stop distracting me, you moron! It's counter-productive to my training!"

He obnoxiously wagged his finger to me. "Tsk, tsk! Where's the fun in that?"

"I'll shove that fun up to the place in your body where the sun doesn't shine." I flexed my fingers in anticipation, ready to follow through with my threat.

He cackled at me, flashing his sharp canines as a gesture of challenge. "I'd like to see you try." He grinned, throwing me a dry towel to clean myself of my sweat and water. I deftly caught the offered towel, quickly wiping away all of the liquid off my body. "And for the record, it's supposed to help you keep your head cool and focused." He said.

"It's almost impossible to focus when someone is pelting you with fire bullets while you're trying to balance yourself with two bucket-full of water on one leg on top of a thin bamboo shoot!" I ranted, frustrated. I felt tired, the muscles in my hand was locked in place, sending lances of pain all over my arms while my legs throbbed, the abused muscles screaming curses of agony at me.

"Meh." He shrugged, uncaring of my complaints.

"Why can't I just continue with my speed and strength training anyway?" I asked, tilting my head to the side in confusion. "I've been progressing well in those fields." I made a show of sending a flurry of boxing punches, fighting away at an imaginary opponent.

Old Man gave me an amused grin, apparently entertained with my little showing off session. "Well, judging from the muscle growth in your body, this'll probably be the limit of your growth, for now. Anymore than this and we'll just stunt your full potential. We'll wait for some years until you grow up some more before resuming where we left off. For now, we should focus on your Magic, Technique and Skills."

"I get that part on my Magic and skill, but what about technique?" I asked. Suddenly, something in my mind clicked and I couldn't help but hop excitedly from one feet to another in excitement, despite the pain throbbing in my legs. "Are you going to teach me swordmanship? Spearmanship? Marksmanship?Ooh.. Or maybe even-"

"I guess we can start on your swordsmanship tomorrow." He thought to himself.

"Fuck yeah!" I cheered, excited at the thought of finally holding an honest-to-goodness sword, the legendary weapon of anime. "This is gonna be so cool! I'm so hyped for this!" With stars gleaming in my eyes and a dopey grin on my face, I slowly lost myself into my own imagination.

I never quite notice the less-than-benign smile on his face...

 **-XxXxX-**

THWACK!

THWACK!

THWACK!

The sound of sword swings echoed through the clearing as wooden swords clashed against one another, mine with hard-pressed effort and Old Man's with mocking ease.

"Don't grip your sword too tightly." He instructed, taking the chance to give me a direct demonstartion by shifting his grip mid-swing to change the direction of his sword from my midsection to my chest and shoulder, striking it hard with his wooden sword's blunt-tip. "Grip it strongly but also gently, like you would an eel. This way, your sword's movement will be more flexible and less predictable."

I complied, imagining myself gripping a slippery eel, adjusting the strength of my grip to what Old Man instructed. Finding it feeling slightly better than my previous hold, I moved forward, once again sending a blow towards my stationary enemy.

Quick as lightning, Old Man halted my swing with his sword, nodding pleasedly as my sword stayed within my grip and not flying away into the bushes as he'd probably thought it would. "Good. Widen your stance and balance the weight of your body while you thrust."

I did as I was told, replaying the scene in all those action-packed fantasy Anime where the characters fought with a sword and emulated their stances to the best of my ability, trying to feel which position felt right for me.

"Square your shoulders when you strike!"

THWACK!

THWACK!

"Never let your weapon slip from your grip!"

THWACK!

"Don't hesitate when you strike. Your blade is only as sharp as your conviction!"

THWACK! THWACK!

"Twist your body, especially the hips, when you swing!"

By the time the sun went down from its perch in the sky, my body was mostly black and blue, littered with bruises and scrapes from Old Man's wooden sword striking against my unprotected flesh. I was lying face-down on the ground, body drenched from head to toe with sweat just as the norm with my Old Man's training. I panted and wheezed, my lungs burning with every intake of oxygen while my body went to lock itself, preventing me from any movement.

Old Man sat a little ways away from me, chugging down a bottle of water as he wiped the sweat on his body, sighing contentedly as the water went down his throat. "Well, what do you know, you're pretty good with a sword!" He said, grinning pleasantly at me.

"Pretty good being a punching back, you mean?" I asked dryly, still panting.

"Yeah, that, and you're actually much better at this compared to hand-to-hand. Remember when you first started? You can't even make a decent punch!" He laughed uproariously at the memory. I cringed, trying to bury back that embarrasing moment into the deepest recess of my mind where I would never stumble upon it the rest of my life. "At least, you can actually make a stance and a swing."

"I guess.." I sighed.

And then, like usual, he picked me up by the scruff of my neck before throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me like a sack of potatoes. And like usual, I gave him a half-hearted kick and a punch. "Bastard, put me down!" There was less bite in my voice, too tired with my training to actually complain.

"Uh-uh." He rolled his eyes at me. "Try and make me."

...

"Thought so."

 **-XxXxX-**

Four months went by in a flash of excitement, hardwork, bloody-tears and pain as I went about increasing my skills with the sword. The whole thing was nothing less than torture with Old Man quite literally driving the finer points of swordmaship to me with the help of his wooden sword. Although the results was nothing short of impressive, the method was undoubtedly horrifying.

In contrast to myself, Old Man was in a very good mood, having gotten reports of various Dark Guilds from his underworld connections and went about collecting their prices as quickly as possible, afraid of getting his prey snatched by other Hunters. Luckily, he didn't get poached by his fellows and Old Man managed to cash a lot of money from the Rune Knights for the Dark Mages he'd caught, which numbered on the hundreds.

Suprisingly though, the man had allowed me to assist him on some of his lighter hunts as a way to gain some real experience. Granted, the foes was nothing more than measly bandits with no-skill with their weapon other than swinging around wildly like a drunken baboon, but its still more challenging when you know your opponent is fighting to actually kill you rather than turn you black and blue. So, yeah, experience.

"UGHK!"

I sheated my Katana back to its sheath as the last of the group of bandits Old Man has assigned to me as an exercise fell to the ground in an unconscious heap. I turned around, checking and double checking to make sure that there was no one left that would suddenly jump out of the bushes to ambush me. Sure that I was now alone, I called out for the bounty hunter to come from whatever hole he's hiding in.

"You sure picked things up quick, dipshit." I rolled my eyes at him, exasperated at the nicknames he's been calling me with for the past few months since we met. He checked all the bandits, whistling in appreciation at the number of them and the minimal injury I had on my body. "Damn! Nice job, skippy! And to think you're only five.." He let out a sigh. "I'm such an awesome teacher!"

"More like sadistic." I snarked.

"What was that? I think just heard someone asking me to put them through the wringer."

"Nothing, sir!"

"Uh-huh. Thought so." He smirked, nodding pleasedly as he gathered all the unconscious bandits, easily picking those muscle-bound men with one hand each before conjuring a chain and tied them together, securing it with a lock for finishing touches. "There, all wrapped up and ready to be delivered."

"Bows on top?" I reminded dutifully.

"Oh, right!" With a poof, a large, red bow appeared in his hands. "There ya go!" He tied it to the guy in the middle of the bunch.

Delivering the catches to the Rune Knights and negotiating for the price has become something that I was accustomed to by now. I mean, there's only so much repetition you can handle before the novelty of the experience lost its charm. Oddly enough, the transaction never took more than an hour, something about the mutual dislike between all bounty hunters and rune knights, apparently.

So, now that we don't have a bunch of bandits crying like a group of bitches and our pockets significantly bigger with the prices on their heads, Old Man and me decided to once again fly back to our usual clearing to do the day's training.

"So.. what're we training for today?" I asked, slightly curious and inwardly hoping that I could continue training my skills with my sword. Incidentally, the sword was Old Man's gift for doing so well in the sword arts. Surprising, considering that he loved his money like Romeo did Juliet.

"Today, let's train your magic."

"Eh?"

"Arc of Embodiment, remember?"

"Slap me. I think I'm dreaming." No sooner did I say those words, Lepanto's hand flew so quickly and strike me on my face. "OW! The fuck you do that for!?"

"You asked for it." He snickered.

 **-XxXxX-**

"The Arc of Embodiment is a powerful magic that relies heavily in the strength of the caster's imagination." Old Man began his lectures, trying and somehow, partially succeeding in pulling off the intelligent, professional teacher look. "The clarity of the image in your mind is thus, very important. Most importantly, however, is the believe that you can actually do it."

"This magic is almost limitless in its application. Almost. " He continued, absently pacing back and forth in front of me as he continued his lecture. "The first and most obvious limit of this magic, as I've stated before is your imagination. The second is that it couldn't create events and concepts. The final limit is that you can't create life. Any questions so far?"

We were once again back to the familiar clearing where we did our exercises and training for the past months, sitting on a conveniently placed log as Old Man lectured me on the basic things-to-know about Arc of Embodiment. So far, it painted the same image of the overpowered magic that Hiro Mashima and Wikipedia made it sound like. To be completely honest, I was literally salivating at the prospect of getting my hands on this hax magic.

Unlimited money for life, bitches!

But first, details. "What do you mean by concepts and events? Also, weren't your monsters alive?" I asked, digging some more information about the magic I was about to learn.

"Good question." He nodded at me, looking somewhat pleased that I wasn't as stupid as someone my age should be. "Concepts, such as death, time and space, is something you can't make simply because they're something abstract, without physical existence. It's like trying to make a glass of water to stay still without a glass to contain them." He explained.

"So the only way I can create a concept is by creating the metaphorical glass first before filling it with the water, right?" I guesed, wrapping my head around the imagery of glass and water.

Old Man nodded at me, relieved that I wasn't about to make this talk longer than it should be. "Exactly. Now, back to the your question. Events is something that AoE is unable to interfere. No leeway on this rule, unfortunately. You can't just imagine your most hated enemy to burst into flames and die a horribly slow and painful death. You can't will a volcano to erupt out of a blue with just your imagination. Understood?"

"Yeah."

"Lastly, my monsters are similar to that of golems. While it is possible to give them some semblance of self-awareness, intelligence and personality, in the end, they're still made up of our magic and when it fades or when we can't supply it for them, they will disappear." He explained, having finally grown bored of pacing around the same place for over several minutes before sitting down on another log.

"Ah.. I see." I nodded.

"Okay then, since you're done with this, let's move on to the practicals." He grinned at me, this time pleasantly surprised to see me shooting him the same grin plastered on his face.

"Fuck yeah, let's do this!"

 **-XxXxX-**

Five minutes into the exercise and I was practically gritting my teeth hard enough to shatter a ceramic vase in sheer frustration. In simple terms, It's like trying to solve a particularly challenging math problems, one that requires extreme caution in calculation, brain-melting concentration and mind-crushing formulas to complete. Yup, It's that bad.

No wonder Rustyrose turned out to be that narcissistic asshole.

I mean, I had my control down no problem. In fact, I can even go so far so as to say that it was near perfect. However, the damn magic just refused to form the simple spoon I had in mind! It's utterly frustrating.

"Having trouble, waffles?" I glanced back to Old Man's relaxed form, leaning on the trunk of the tree as he sat on one of its branches, staring amusedly at my failed attempts at creating a spoon.

"How very perceptive." I drawled, an annoyed scowl on my face. "And stop giving me nicknames, bastard!"

"Uh-huh. Keep trying. I'm sure you can do it someday in the future. For now, I'm going to the nearest town for some booze. I've got matchsticks in my bag and some instant noodle for you to munch on later. I'm off, be back next morning!" And with that, the annoying Bounty Hunter disappeared, leaping away into the forest.

"Tsk." I clicked my tongue and once again brought my focus to the magic flowing beneath my skin, willing them to form the image I had in my mind. "Come on you damn stubborn energy, turn into one goddamn spoon.." As if to spite me, the magic dspersed just as soon as it formed the vague shape of a spoon, like a smoke blown by the wind.

"This is going to take a long time.."

 **-XxXxX-**

 **"N** o **T EN** oUg **h.**.. **."**

A sickening crunch echoed through the cave as a pair of monstrously humongous jaws lined with serrated teeth the size of daggers snapped itself close and severed the head of an unconscious man from the rest of its body, spewing a fountain of blood in a gory shower of gore.

 **"** M **uS** T fI **n** D **M** O **rE..."**

Clawed feet padded softly on the rough floor of the cave, stepping on the half-mangled body of another man and pausing briefly to pick up the half-devoured corpse and gobbling it down like a piece of steak before continuing its track forward, towards the mouth of the cave. The light. The outside.

The demon disappeared into the light, the only thing left was a puddle of freshly-spilled blood and the headless, half-devoured corpse of a human.

 **"..FoR ZeREf!"**

* * *

 **A/N: What do you think? Leave your comments down on review box below! See ya next time!**


	8. Notice

**A/N:**

 **I'm sorry for my absence in the past six months. Well, to put it bluntly, real life happens. It's my senior year in highschool so I would have to push everything out and focus on my studies to appease my Mom and, of course, to get a good university. It's a work in progress. But yeah, hopefully, I can update the next chapter come April.**

 **Ta-ta for now!**

 **-Silvershark Fang, signing out.**


End file.
